*[Honestly, today’s discussion is not for everyone. Sympathy is expressed for those considered deplorable by many and man’s ubiquitous darkness is uncomfortably examined. I felt this brief caveat necessary just in case. Thank you so much!]
A sad topic from a marginally bleaker time do I have for you today. Extremely rainy day appropriate. We’ve all heard that without fear there can be no courage and I agree with that sentiment. A slightly more controversial variation may be that there cannot exist virtue in its purest form given the absence of evil.
Let’s please examine on the micro level of a singular person. Should an individual be completely untouched by immorality and so presumably acts in a manner congruent with such thinking, has this person really performed a service to humanity? Of course they have but I think my deepest praises belong to those who battle the darkest corners of their own soul and achieve victory.
I doubt anyone can be born truly devoid of a capacity for evil, we are all Human in the end. Everyone sins, we all lie, we are by our very natures selfish and grasping. Still, peoples cursed to feel evil’s strongest pull and still resist have garnered my respect. Those who would commit murder and abstain, non-practicing sexual abusers, really anyone in a position to gain from the misery or suffering of others who successfully resists doing so. I thank you and dedicate this poem to you and your ongoing fight. I am sorry for your misfortune and I truly pray you find happiness. You do deserve it.
“Glamour”, June 23, 2018
Despite your firm opinion
That you came to know me
You failed to penetrate
Even the outer shell
Masks and walls plentiful
Essential guards of darkness
Evil seeds in fertile ground
Must never be granted sustenance
Lest who you think I am
Is proven as the illusion it always was.
It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit that there was a significant portion of my adolescence upwards where I was very much convinced of my own vileness. For all sorts of what now appear as being quite trivial matters. It took me a very long time before I realized evil is born through actions not thoughts. Your thoughts flow from you but they are not you. Harry Potter was to be in Slytherin but he chose not to be. I think it was Dumbledore he engaged in response who extolled the righteousness of our own decisions and how they alone determine our true worth. You are not responsible for what may organically come to pass within your brain, only the output you create independent of its influence or not. You may still finish out as a villain but it was you alone who chose to be such and you alone are responsible.
My apologies for the distinct lack of humorous content within today’s efforts. I offered recent council to a young person brawling not dissimilar demons to those I still must bat aside on occasion. I wanted anyone else who may be similarly afflicted to know that you are not alone. You are loved and you have greatness within you to offer. Be who YOU want to be. Be good and BE LOVE.
-Alex Blaikie
Dread Poets Sobriety 
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